Clifton Beach is a few miles east and south of the port of Cape Town. Standing off and maintaining pressure on the wires off Eihatsu Maru‘s stern is supply vessel Ocean Pride, Texas-launched 1954. Here’s Colin’s description, ” There were two wires coming out of her stern and at quite a distance like half a kilometer Ocean Pride was keeping the tension on the cables. . . .”

There were spectators all through Saturday as the tide rose and fell and the

sun began to set.

Part of the crew stays on board; to leave now would be to sacrifice the vessel to salvors.

Here’s more of Colin’s words, ” Hawser [went from Ocean Pride] all the way to the tug SMIT AMANDLA(300′ loa x 50′ and 16,000 hp, built Durban 1975) another half K away. Ocean Pride stood therewith not any strain on the wire for a long time and we all waited for the tide to rise, which it did right on schedule. Ocean Pride moved out of the way and the tug put a bit of strain on the wire like playing a fish. Perhaps even for an hour and you could see the wire rising out of the sea and I doubt they used all 16,000 Horse power but kept the strain and in the lights of the tug you could see the turbulence of the prop wash. It was actually quite exciting. The captain of the Japanese fishing vessel has a nice border collie with him aboard.”

” Then there was an almighty bang followed by the sound of steel wire rope rushing out over steel and then a long splash as the end hit the water. So that is that till next high tide tomorrow morning. When I left they were starting to rig another cable and the tug was out of the bay reeling in the towing warp.”